Not Alone
by WriterSpud
Summary: A TCP story - read and REVIEW, please!


Disclaimer: I don't own the concept of mutants or anything. I wish I did, though, so if Marvel wants to share, feel free. :-)  
  
A/N: Dunno where this came from, but it bit me in the middle of bio class, and I wrote out this draft in about two hours. Review, or die. Flames will be used to heat my house (saves money, y'know.) Just read it and tell me what you think! (Please?)  
  
  
  
  
  
Alexandra Holiman  
  
English 2H, p. 5 12.3.01  
  
Heat.  
  
It's a funny thing, really. It's essential to human life, one of the necessities of survival. In survival training, you learn to find food, water, and shelter - to shield you from the elements, to keep you warm. You cook food over it, you clean yourself, your water, your clothes with it. You curl up in it on a cold winter day, huddled under heaps of blankets. A mother's warm hug, the warm kiss of a puppy, a hot mug of soup - they all bring comfort. Heat represents not only survival, but love and comfort.  
  
But heat is also lethal. A day at the beach can threaten a life if you get careless with the intense heat from the sun. A dry forest, baking in the summer heat, can reach its flash point and in an instant, be engulfed in flames. Brushing a bare hand over a hot pot, or even a sip of too-hot coffee can leave you in pain. Getting to close to fire - such an essential to life - can leave you scarred for life. Or dead.  
  
Heat is fickle. It can take thousands of forms, from a bubble in water, to lightning streaking through the sky, to two human hands holding each other. From a red torrent of liquid rock to the ever-present rays of the sun. Heat is everywhere.  
  
Heat is defined, scientifically speaking, as particles - atoms - moving faster and faster. But in reality, that definition is wrong. Heat is something you feel on your face, something you embrace along with loved ones. Heat is a sharing of bodies and hearts, a sign of life. Heat is like water, or oxygen: essential to human life, one of the things the body cannot exist without. But with too much heat, the body will cease to live.  
  
The most important type of heat comes from touch. One human body can heat another, at least for a while, if survival needs it. But the thing most people realize is how important touch is. Skin - on - skin contact. The direct exchange of body heat. You need to be able to touch, to feel someone else on your skin, even if it's just holding hands. In order to survive, you need touch. You need to be able to feel physically, in order to feel emotionally. That body heat is crucial for human life.  
  
Garrett Copperson had been teaching English at the high school level for fifteen years now. He'd taught at four different schools, ranging from an inner-city school where less than half the class graduated, to a private school that cost nearly ten thousand dollars a year. But Apple Valley was the best: a public school, with students ranging from kids who it was likely they wouldn't graduate, to studious teens that are bound for ivy- league schools. Normally, he could peg kids after the first two days of class - how good they'd be at what, who would be likely to cut his class, who would show up every day of the year, and so on.  
  
But Alexandra Holiman still was a mystery. Even now, in December, he couldn't figure the dark-haired girl out.  
  
She was, without a doubt, a brilliant writer. And he knew, she read a lot. It seemed that every week, there was a different book tumbling from her hastily-opened bag. One week, it was an Isaac Asimov novel, the next, a teen romance story. Words were her passion.  
  
She didn't seem to really have friends. Not that she didn't get along with everyone else, or hated them. It was just.Lex was too old for her age. She was painfully mature. She seemed to relate better to the older characters in her books than to her peers.  
  
And this composition.there was something in it. Something he had to know about.  
  
Setting it aside, Garrett pulled out his lesson plans for tomorrow.  
  
"She really keeps to herself. Not a problem in class, at least."  
  
Alexandra Holiman  
  
US History 2H, p. 3 12.5.01  
  
Our society today is a mirror image of the sixties. In the sixties: fighting for civil rights, people protesting a war, two groups: the hippies, and the 'normal people'. Today: fighting for civil rights, people protesting an inner conflict, two groups: the mutants, and the humans. It's a bitter reminder that history does indeed repeat itself. In the seventeen hundreds, it was the British and the colonists. In the nineteen forties, it was the Jews and the Germans. In the nineteen sixties, it was the blacks and the whites. In the eighties, it was the gays and the straights. And now, it's the mutants and the humans.  
  
It's all the same. One decade it's color of skin - which no one can control. You don't choose to be born black or white or tan or red or anywhere in between. You just are. Then, it's sexual orientation. Not preference - no one 'prefers' to be gay or bisexual or straight. You just are. There's no choice in it. It's the exact same with mutants. That's what they are: people who's genes have decided to flip out on them. Who knows, maybe we'll all be mutants some day.  
  
The violence isn't just what you read about in the paper with injuries and body counts. The violence is in peoples heads and peoples hearts. Hating someone can cause just as much pain, if not more, as hitting them or shooting them or whatever else. You see the protests and counter-protests on TV, and they should speak for themselves. You see the anti-mutant protesters with 'hang the muties' signs and lynched dummies. They cry out for violence, or at least treating the mutants like animals. Making them register themselves, applying for permits like a dog.  
  
Then the camera pans, switches angles, and shows the counter- protests. These terrible, evil mutants. Many of them have their kids with them. They are protesting, quite simply, for the right to live. They want their rights, just as every citizen of this country does. And they might have the nerve to ask for a bit more, too - like respect as a human being.  
  
The right to live in freedom is just that: a right. It is your right, and no one can take it away.  
  
"You really never knew?" Lex bit her tongue slightly, looking nervously at Mr. Copperson.  
  
Garrett Copperson shook his head. "Why would I? You look completely normal. Well, for a high school sophomore. You act pretty normal. I had no reason to suspect anything."  
  
Lex fidgeted slightly. "Um.you're not gonna.tell anyone, are you?"  
  
"Of course not. Unless you explicitly ask me to tell someone, I will not breathe a word of it to anyone. You have my word, Lex."  
  
"Thanks. I just.I know I shouldn't be embarrassed by it, and I'm not really, but, um.it's not something I want all around school."  
  
"I understand completely. May I ask a personal question, though?"  
  
"Um, sure."  
  
"What can you do?"  
  
Her body language instantly become less assured, Lex absently crossed her arms over her chest, and looked at the floor. "Heat," she said quietly.  
  
"You can control heat?"  
  
Gently gnawing on her lip, Lex shook her head. "I can.I don't know what to call it. I can create heat. I just think about it, and I can heat stuff up."  
  
Mr. Copperson looked truly interested. Not like he was just humoring her or hiding revulsion - he wasn't. He truly was fascinated. "How hot?"  
  
She looked down again. "Too hot. I accidentally melted a steel pot once."  
  
"It's hard to control?"  
  
Lex bit her tongue again. Was that mockery in his voice? Or actual sympathy? "I.yeah. Sometimes. A lot. I.that's why I don't like to be around people. Emotion makes it a lot harder."  
  
"You'll learn," he said softly.  
  
Lex glanced up at him again. "How."  
  
He smiled at her. "You're not the only mutant in this school, Lex," he said softly. "You're not as alone as you think you are." 


End file.
